Soiled, Broken, and Crumbling like Ashes
by DarkJisushiku
Summary: The guards always told the prisoners there "You either leave as loyal or you leave as ash." One boy's thoughts on leaving... Even though he's not controlled by them, he's still completely soiled.[Rated for NCS.]


**Title: Soiled, Broken, and Crumbling like Ashes**  
  
**Rating: R ... references of rape/implied rape.**  
  
**Disclaimer:** If I owned Weiss Kreuz I'd be busy writing more episodes, not fanfics....  
  
**Author's Notes:** Certainly one of my more darker fics. I really am proud of this one, though I'm not entirely sure why. Please R&R.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** _ You either leave as loyal, or you leave as ash..._**

_---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

In the surrounding darkness, the shadowy figure went unnoticed. Not that there was any one _to_ notice... No one was here to accompany him. Just the darkness and his own half-shattered mind. Only the guards, who once every two days, would unlock the steel door and check if he was still alive. And even though he sat against the back wall, where even the hallway's light couldn't reach, his raspy voice gave him away. So the guards would re-lock the door and leave him to his punishment. Food, or what they referred to as 'food,' was slipped through a mail-slot in the door. Other than a small toilet and sink, nothing provided companionship to the prisoner - only the dark.  
  
He briefly pitied the younger children who they locked in. The dark was scary enough to a sixteen year old... It was all-consuming and everywhere, anywhere he looked. There was no windows, no vents, nothing but the steel door in this miserable cell. And even the door was sealed so tightly that no light from the hallway couldn't escape to visit him. Pad-locks traced up and down the door's outside - the captive could hear the restraints when the guards opened and locked the entrance. But other than the lack of light and uncomfortable accommodations, it really wasn't _all_ bad.  
  
The room was gargantuan - with high, cathedral ceiling and a very spacious floor plan. Even if he had jumped his highest, he could never possibly hope to scrap the top of the room. The toilet was decent, small but decent. The sink was the same and its water was room-temperature, however, still refreshing to the room's guest. The concert floor was brutal on his back when he slept, but was cool enough to calm his midnight sweats.  
  
And the best part of this imprisonment was the time he spent alone. Too many of his peers during that last week and half would have lost their sanities by now. But not him. Not the boy who was the brightest, revolutionary thinker of this time. He wasn't scared by the darkness - disturbed, perhaps, not never afraid. This capture gave the sixteen-year-old time to think... the one thing the superiors should have never allowed him to do.  
  
Thinking allowed him to clear all of their moronic brainwashing. They were fools, locking him in here. All this time alone allowed him to regain his mental stability. Their sadistic threats were worthless as long as he had time to ignore them and form his own opinions. All of the time they spent trying to break him was useless, just as long as he received enough time to _think_...  
  
They wanted to break him -_ what a joke._ Their dark cells didn't fracture his clear, sharp mind. And being alone wasn't a horrible experience either. (If they really believed it was, then it was more like a horrible_ joke_.) Actually, the relief from stupidity of the 'people' (more like brainwashed husks) was relaxing. His mind wasn't nearly as shattered as the others' here. Being locked up with himself was not repulsive. It was calming and gentle. This silence allowed him to build up what the seniors had broken, fixing his sanity and forming a good foundation for his own mindset...  
  
A clunk in the hallway... The sound of dragging... The stomps of booted soldiers... The screams of boys and girls as more children were locked away, punished for the wrong they had done. Even for the wrongs they hadn't done...  
  
"Mommy!" the American children often cried. "Mutti!" for the German boys and girls. "Mama!" for the smaller tots. "Mother!" wept the upper-classmen. "Haha!" for the Japanese. "Ma!" for those who were lower on the status-level. "Madre!" for the Spanish. "Mere!" sobbed the French. "Mum!" the English ones whimpered. "Me!" from the Portuguese kids. And many other versions of that were screamed, whispered, shouted, sobbed, and even taunted in the outside halls.  
  
"Daddy!" was another cry that seemed almost part of these cells. "Vati!" cried the Germans. "Papa!" for the toddlers. "Father!" wept the politer children. "Chichi!" for the Japanese. "Pa!" or "Pop!" for the lower-classmen. "Padre!" yelled the Spanish. "Pere!" cried the French. "Dad!" for the English. "Pai!" for those Portuguese. And other languages shouted the same thing, all at once, a symphony of homeless, lost children crying for comfort.  
  
But other names were mentioned also... Names from all different cultures, all different backgrounds floated in and out of the cells. Mary, Marie, Maria... Jon, John, Johnny, Jonathan, Jack... Jessica, Jessie, Jessi, Jesse, Jessy, Jisusa... Sabine... Hans... Toulouse... Denis... Ryosuke... Sakyo... Anne, Ann, Anna, Anastasia, Hanna, Hannah, Annbell... Taylor, Tyler, Ty... Luna, Lucia, Lucy, Lucas, Lukas, Luke... Davin, David, Dave, Davey... Dan, Daniel, Danny... Blair... Kelly... Marco... Utako... Sakura... Cher... Mavea... Fiona... Erin... Aaron... Mya... Kalma... Kali... Thea.... Blaise, Blair, Blondie... Irma... Daisy... Susan... Vera... Tatiana... Emmanuel... Fufu, Fifi, Mimi, Mima, Mami... Darien, Daryan, Dari, Daria, Dara, Damara... Chan... Shadi... Melaney... Chantal... Chang... Diane, Diana, Di, Dee... Dexter... Gwen, Gwyn, Gwyneth, Gweneth, Guinevere... Collin, Conlan, Conway... Bianca, Bikko, Bika... So many, many foreign names never to be heard again after the children were released.  
  
Soon enough each child in this dungeon would learn that their family members' names, their friends' names, and even their own names were useless. No solace could be found in these worthless words. Even if they cried those names until their own voices went hoarse, no one would come. They were all trapped... _forever._  
  
Down the hall, two Italian boys, who had been in here longer than him, constantly shouted, "SORELLA! FRATELLO!" Due to the sealed door and concrete walls, these yells were faint to the captive, but heard nonetheless. Sadly, the prisoner was sure they would never see either their sister or brother again.  
  
"ABUELA!" cried a Spanish girl in the cell next to him. That's the only name she voiced - possibly the only person she thought would come to her aid. She was most likely one of the children forced out of their homes. Her poor grandmother was probably sick with worry...  
  
Down the hallway, a Japanese kid was sobbing, "NIISAN! SOTA! SOTA! NIISAN!" Wherever his older brother was now, he was certainly no where near this place.  
  
"SABINE!" hollered a teenage girl, German and hysterical. Whoever this 'Sabine' was, she was really loved by the other prisoner. Maybe Sabine was her sister, her friend, possibly even her childhood doll. Whoever she was, the German girl would never come face to face with her ever again. "SABINE! SABINE! SABINE!"  
  
But the intelligent boy never cried out for another - he knew better. He understood that no matter how loud you yelled, no matter how long you shouted for, no one ever came. No one. _Ever.  
_  
Suddenly all the screams got louder... The guards were coming... _again_... With another child, another prisoner. He listened to the pad-locks being removed and his own door creaked open. It wasn't time for him to be released - _so why?  
_  
"Here, some company for ya, 165," the guards sneered, shoving the shivering thing at him.  
  
_165. That's cute..._ The guards referred to them as numbers, statistics.  
  
The men slipped back out the door and locked it, but not before one snickered, saying, "Be a good girl to the man, 173, and the man will be good to you." Then, once again, darkness.  
  
It was laughably sick the way the minds around here worked. This terrified girl must be less than eleven, judging on the glimpse he had seen of her height. They had forced her into an unsupervised cell with a sixteen year old boy. Many of the perverted jerks would have played their 'games' with her. That was expected. Anything short of abuse or rape was _astonishing_. The superiors were obviously testing, teasing him with her. They wanted to know what he would do, how cruel he was, in what twisted way did his mind work, and how sick he really was... What he did with her was just an amusement for the sadistic bastards.  
  
_Tough luck...._ He wouldn't have ANYTHING to do with the malicious games they played...  
  
The rattle of weak bones against flimsy flesh brought him back to the matter at hand. Eleven or so and all ready in here. Probably one who had tried to escape. Poor brat, didn't she know that no one ever got out of here in one piece? Who was she, a mere child, to try and leave with both her sanity and body?  
  
There was only two ways out: Succumb to the brainwashing crap and leave one of their mindless extensions, or_ the second option_. No one really had to elaborate on what _the second option_ was. It was through the chimney stacks... Their whip-crackers only mentioned it as _"the second option,"_ but lolling tongues reported the real definition. The ghastly halls told about it. The perverted leers of their superiors told about it. The looks in the eyes of the "broken" ones told about it. It was what happened to those who disappeared in the middle of the night. It was what happened to those who could never learn their lesson. It was what happened to the weak and the stubborn. The guards smirked at them, drawling, _"You either leave as loyal or you leave as ash."_ That's what they were told and that's what they believed. Why? Because it was true.  
  
It was a hard truth to handle... Many couldn't. But what else would explain his class of forty-six dwindling down to twenty-eight when no one had visibly left? Yeah, it was true, but most of them tended to ignore the truth...  
  
Some like this young girl, for instance.  
  
How far had she gotten on her little adventure? How far had those feeble excuses for legs had carried her? As far as they could, he guessed by the husky breaths she was drawing in. Idly, he wondered how many more attempts to leave she would take before learning her place. She was prisoner. Prisoners were NEVER let free. How long before she learned that?  
  
There were those who never learned that - they just kept running in circles until struck down and thrown out. As stubborn as you were you couldn't possible make any attempt to leave here without a physical body to attempt with. This fate was simple enough: you accept it or you burn into ash.  
  
_ Ashes...  
_  
He could recall the face of a dumpy boy, ten years old and freckle-faced. That brat had been jolly, with a round face reminiscent of Santa Claus. Big, adorably brown puppy-eyes shined on his roly-poly face, as a button nose was sprinkled with tiny dots. He wasn't very fast, but very strong - in more ways than one. But he wasn't as strong as he was expected to be.  
  
The morning they found his bed empty was the same morning the west chimney was letting out black, curling smoke made of despair and forlorn hope. No one asked where he had gone or when he would come back. It was best to not get - um, what was the word the guards used? - _'attached'_ to anyone here. Because it was rare that anyone stayed for long... That dumpy boy never came back, that was for sure.  
  
He certainly wasn't attached. Like it was said before, he was much smarter than average. He could fully understand the consequences of getting to know someone here. This was the exact reason he was currently ignoring the girl before him.  
  
If he came to care for her, it would result in her being used against him. This was how things were here.  
  
"Mutti...," whimpered the girl. A slight shuffle of feet and he could tell she was now at the door. "Mutti..." Ah, so she was a German girl. Lucky her, she didn't have to be boxed up on a plane to get here like he had. The trickle of tears alerted him to the fact that she was new here. (No one who had stayed here long enough ever _dared_ to cry.)  
  
Ignoring her, he drifted off to sleep...  
  
In the morning, the guards checked on him and were disappointed to see number 173 with her limbs still intact and her clothes still on. Grumbling, they jerked her out of the cell to place her with a more corrupt inmate. Later on that day, from inside that cold cell, the outside sounds of a German girl's pleads were heard down the hall. Such was the fate of the weak. And he held no pity for her.  
  
The guards tried two more unsuccessful times to entice the captive into brutality. Nothing seemed to work on him. Either he was losing his sanity or shedding his insanity. It was quite hard to tell which. But whether he was crazier or more normal, he ignored any child who was put any with him. They were a waste of his time....  
  
"Hey," snapped a guard one week later. A kick landed in the sixteen-year-old's stomach. "Get up, 165. Time to go back to school."  
  
The guards nearly had to drag him out of the cell and back into the life of the outside world. Once again in the gloomy sunlight, he was brought to the head office. It was large, boasting office, with beautiful wooden floors and wonderful wooden doors. There was a private fireplace (rumor had it that the current headmaster disposed of the slackers then and there). The man who owned this office was a broad, mousy man with a smirk that never left his face.  
  
"Have you learned your lesson, _boy_?" the icy man asked from behind the oak desk. He was quick to prove he was in charge - the tone he say 'boy' with clearified that.  
  
The said boy was standing, raven-hair untidy and clothes distraught. But _standing,_ which was an unusual sight for this headmaster.  
  
"Yes, Herr Schneider," he replied automatically, eyes empty, showing no emotion.  
  
"Good, _boy_."  
  
The smirk on the elder man's lips was irksome. His gray eyes held that "bow-down-to-me-peasant" look of a king. It was hard for the boy to control himself from not trying to slap that warped look off the headmaster's face. But, some how, he succeeded in controlling himself.  
  
"But," sighed the man lazily, licking his lips, "you don't seem nearly as bothered by seclusion as you should."  
  
The boy remained silent.  
  
"What can I do to change that, _boy_?" he asked slyly, looking the teenage body up and down, with the uncomfortable "undressing-with-the-eyes" look.  
  
The boy didn't so much as twitch.  
  
The headmaster didn't seem bothered by the silence. He merely added, "If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours... Maybe if you're a good _boy_, I'll raise your grades..." And he made his way towards the boy to give him the perverted punishment he had chosen for the trouble-maker, taking off his shirt. The boy understood and didn't bother to fight that older man off. This was how it was here....

Sadistic.... Cruel.... Miserable.... But no fight of diginity could ever change that.

Giving in, the boy started to reluctantly take off his own ragged shirt. Then he slowly began to unzip his pants. Like it was said _"You either leave as loyal, or you leave as ash." _There was no room for 'leaving as diginified' in this awful place. That just wasn't part of the saying...  
  
But even after the boy was soiled beyond cleansing, two things remained the same: This wasn't the Holocaust, the Inquisition, or even Hell. This was far worse... This was_ Rosenkreuz_. And this sixteen-year-old boy was still a student there...  
  
Ranked 21 out of a class of 28.  
  
Age was sixteen and a half.  
  
Hair color was black, eye color was a light honey tone color.  
  
Student at Rosenkreuz for five years.  
  
That was him:Brad Crawford. And this... This was Rosenkreuz. _"You either leave as loyal or you leave as ash."_ He chose to leave as a little of both.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**The End**

**-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**A/N's: **I'm thinking of a sequel. Good idea or bad idea? I'm really getting into the Crawford stories, don't know why, though... I just guess he's an interesting character to try and write. Anyway, review, please! ==

****


End file.
